When Cameron Met Zoe
by alienyouthct
Summary: To ensure victory for humanity once and for all, John and Cameron delve deep into history… and Cameron travels back to when and where things actually began.
1. When Cameron Met Zoe

Title: When Cameron Met Zoe  
Author: JoeHundredaire  
Rating: R/FR18.  
Disclaimer: Ronald D. Moore is responsible, love it or hate it, for the second incarnation of _Battlestar Galactica_, _Caprica_, and their characters. Not entirely sure how the entire _Terminator_ franchise fits together, what with the movies and TV show and comics and all, or who owns it. Not me, though. Not mine, don't sue, et cetera and so forth.  
Summary: To ensure victory for humanity once and for all, John and Cameron delve deep into history… and Cameron travels back to when and where things actually began.  
Joe's Note: Just a bit of strangeness that hit me when I was thinking about time travel and the never-ending war between Skynet and the Resistance. In one of the Dark Horse comics, Sarah gives birth to Jane Connor, causing a major temporal disturbance because she was supposed to give birth to a John and had in the future from which people had been sent back. The Terminator sent back disappears, people come back to life, etc. Now… what would happen if you sent someone really far back? And changed something massive? Poof. There goes the timeline, and therefore the ability of anyone to follow and undo what's been done.

* * *

**_An Unknown Resistance Location - July 15, 2027_**

* * *

"I still say this whole thing sounds like something out of a bad sci-fi movie."

"And fighting an artificial intelligence's robot warriors in a post-apocalyptic environment doesn't?"

"Hah! Metal just told you, man."

"Shut the fuck up."

Rolling his eyes, John Connor ignored his bickering men and continued to watch over the shoulder of his diminutive protector and - if this actually worked - the soon to be true savior of mankind. "They're right, though, Cam. I mean… the idea that we all come from some far off world of humans and they settled here a quarter million years ago? It's wild." And given he was older than his own father and spent his formative years fleeing from cybernetic organisms intent on assassinating him for something he'd do after their leader caused a nuclear holocaust… the idea of anything being 'wild' to him really said something.

Cameron Phillips nodded in the direction of the large black cylinder sitting a short distance away, dozens of strands of fiber optic cable snaking from it to the computer she was working on. "The proof is sitting here in front of us; if they choose to ignore it, that isn't my concern. The module is clearly of extraterrestrial origin, incorporating at least three elements that don't exist on Earth. And the data, despite being recorded using binary, was not encoded in any way that I - and therefore Skynet - is familiar with."

She had a point there. If it walked like a duck and quacked like a duck… it was in all likelihood a duck. The module hadn't been made on Earth and had contained data encoded using a strange version on Doric Greek that had never actually seen use on Earth, at least as far as pre-Judgment Day anthropologists had known. Even with her formidable abilities, it had taken Cameron a week to create a program to translate the information from the Greek variant - written boustrophedonically with an alphabet that included the standard twenty-four Greek characters, seven esoteric ones, and five more beyond that - into UTF-8 encoded English that the rest of them could actually read.

Still, even knowing that the information was genuinely of extraterrestrial origin, did he really want to trust it for an operation of this magnitude? Was it factual? For all he knew, Cameron had recovered some sci-fi writer's home desktop hard drive and found the files for a wildly successful novel series. Pity NASA's primary facilities had gone up in mushroom clouds on Judgment Day; right now, being able to point Hubble in the right direction and find out if this 'Cyrannus' system even existed would be incredibly reassuring.

Fuck. As if not finding what she wanted to would stop Cameron. She would just pull out some explanation that would leave him feeling utterly idiotic for questioning her and continue on her merry way. The very thing that so many of his men found off-putting about her - that unfailing, constant confidence that her actions would lead to the results she desired in the end - was one of the things he loved about her. Even if it did remind him a bit too much of his mother for his comfort.

Not that he'd ever shared that observation with Sarah Connor before she'd died.

"Touché. Well, it's your cute ass on the line here, Cam. If something goes wrong, the rest of us keep on living. So as long as you're sure of what you're doing, I guess that's all that matters." John continued to watch, resting his chin on Cameron's shoulder, as she added string after string of characters to the algorithm targeting her destination. It - along with the reinforced connections to the nearby nuclear power plant - were the only two visible signs that something other than normal temporal travel was about to happen. "But if you do end up arriving in deep space or in the middle of a mountain or something? I so get to say 'I told you so' as soon as you make it back."

Cameron stilled for a moment before letting loose a laugh that made the other humans in the room pause and stare at the Terminator and her companion. Then John narrowed his eyes and his men got back to work, leaving he and Cameron to their own devices. One hand still flying over the keyboard, Cameron reached up to gently caress his cheek. "You know that if I do manage this, everything will change and the odds of you actually existing are infinitesimally small. The probability of your great-great-great-great grandfather existing is less than zero point zero zero one percent, and the likelihood of your conception grows even smaller with each 'great' you remove from that. You should be more worried about your future, rather than mine."

Shrugging, John wrapped his arms around Cameron's thin waist and ignored the murmurs his behavior evoked from his men. The rumors had persisted for years, from when he'd arrived in the wake of Judgment Day with a Terminator bodyguard that technically shouldn't have existed yet, through the arrival of the 'new' Cameron and her departure back through time to become the one who still accompanied him to this day… growing and multiplying each time he sided with her over his fellow man. She was simple, though. Humans lied. They were deceitful. Cameron… well, she could lie to him but her chip couldn't. Nothing ended a 'he said', 'she said' argument faster than letting people watch video footage of what had really happened.

Besides, who cared if publicly hugging Cameron like this would send the rumor mills into overdrive? If everything went according to plan, they'd all cease to exist in less than ten minutes. And at least it was a civilized, peaceful death. They'd simply disappear as the time stream realigned itself. Or at least that was what Cameron claimed and… well, if he didn't trust her, he wouldn't be allowing her to try this. "To 'manage this', you need to hit the surface - and a spot on the surface not occupied by something else - of a planet that's part of a quadrary star system halfway across the galaxy, over a quarter of a million years after the last data about it was recorded. You're going to need a hell of a lot of luck to manage that, Cam."

"Luck is just probability given personality, John." After giving John's hand one last fleeting touch, Cameron returned both hands to the keyboard and inputted the last of the new subroutines. "Done. Begin charging the capacitors." Nobody responded to her command and she stiffened in John's arms. "Must we really go through this every time? He's told you that my word is as good as his. He is standing right here. Do I really need to have him repeat my words for me, or will you do as I say and begin charging the capacitors?" John waited, wondering if he'd actually have to step in, but his men grudgingly nodded and moved to the four compass points marked with giant pillars and tapped in the appropriate commands, all four coming to life with dull hums at the exact same moment. "Thank you."

The capacitors were unique to this equally unique attempt at space and time displacement: massive energy storage devices that would build up and then discharge the burst of power necessary to tear open the space/time continuum to such a degree that a jump of such magnitude could be attempted. The jump itself would be fueled off the Serrano Point power plant like all the others… five minutes from now, when John pushed the button and the world came to an end.

Cameron turned in his grasp and John peered down at the diminutive Terminator, one eyebrow raised inquisitively. She tugged on the t-shirt she was wearing and when he still didn't say anything, rolled her eyes just as he'd reprogrammed her to do once upon a time. "Would you like to keep these for someone else? You know from experience that a trip through a TDE destroys clothing."

Remembering his jump from 1999 to 2007 - and the butt naked arrival in the middle of a freeway at the end - John actually blushed for the first time in recent memory. "Right. Well, I don't think there's anyone else around those would fit… and to be honest, I'd rather not have my last memory of you include a bunch of idiots arguing about whether 'popping wood over metal' is wrong or not."

She snorted at that and the two enjoyed a last minute of semi-intimacy before the computer began beeping rather persistently at them. John eyed the computer screen and the popup window that had appeared, bright red with white Greek characters. If this didn't work… someone was going to have one hell of a fun time trying to undo what Cameron had done to the system. And he was going to lock himself in his office to avoid hearing the bitching about it. Or maybe take a squad out hunting for the first time in a few years. In all likelihood, it'd be easier on his sanity than remaining at the base. "It's ready, isn't it?"

"Fortunately for humanity. Unfortunately for us." John's lips quirked at that and Cameron fisted her deceptively small fist in his shirt, pulling him down for one last kiss. After a few seconds, she pushed him back and moved into the center of the room, stepping into the center of the Resistance's TDE and assuming the standard one-kneed crouch traveling position. "Hasta la vista, baby."

After one last glance at the computer to ensure no error messages had popped up, John moved his hand over the large red button that would trigger Cameron's trip through space and time. "Hasta la vista. And Cam?" The Terminator looked up at him, head tilted to one side curiously. "Good luck."

John pushed the button, watching as tendrils of lightning lashed out from the half a dozen projectors in the room, slowly forming a hazy blue bubble around her that grew more and more opaque. Then there was a bright flash of light and a bone-rattling crack of thunder, and she was gone.

And then everything went white…

* * *

**_Caprica City, Caprica - Ianuarius 22, YR42_**

* * *

As she watched the artificial version of herself stare at the human sacrifice in horrified fascination, waiting to see if the latest patch held or if she derezed again, Zoe Graystone was startled by a crack of thunder. Reaching up, she jerked the holoband off and let the real world replace the V-Club, returning to her stall in the girls' bathroom at the Athena Academy. Slowly standing up, she opened the stall door and peered out, wondering what had disturbed her. Then fingers wrapped around her throat and she found herself yanked out into the open, feet dangling uselessly in the air.

As she hung there, fingers scrabbling uselessly against the iron grip around her throat, the dark brown eyes staring up at her focused and Zoe found herself crashing to the floor in a tangle of limbs. Scrambling backwards, she slowly looked from the bare feet of her attacker up a pair of bare legs and over a bare… everything else… before returning to her face. The girl was staring at her blankly, a reaction that Zoe wasn't used to getting. Most of the other girls here at the Academy sneered at her, jealous of her intelligence, her family's wealth, or derisive of her disinterest in their petty cliques. Out and about around Caprica, people tended to recognize 'the Graystone heiress' due to the many public functions her father forced her to attend.

But this girl? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Zoe could have been a turtle for all the girl seemed to care. And somehow that was more disturbing than the fact that this lunatic girl was running around the school completely frakking naked. Zoe was used to being loved and hated. Complete and total disinterest? That was new.

When the girl spoke, her voice was utterly flat and without accent, reminding her of the first primitive versions of Serge's software back when she was younger. It was just… unnatural. Even the professional polyglots who worked translating broadcasts of the meetings of the Colonies' leaders weren't so perfectly even. Everyone had a taint to their spoken Caprican, and yet this girl didn't. It was one more mystery to add to a bevy of others. Then she processed what the girl had actually said to her. "Your clothes." What about her uniform? "Remove your clothes, now. I require them."

…okay, if this was what came from the crazy naked girl paying attention to her, maybe she'd been better off before. Zoe opened her mouth to protest, only to close it when the girl narrowed her eyes at her. Glancing in the direction of the bathroom door, Zoe debated the odds of successfully making a run from the crazy naked girl… and then abandoned that plan when the girl dropped back to one knee and drove her fist through the tile floor up to the middle of her forearm.

Zoe abruptly rose to her feet, unzipped her skirt, and began wiggling out of it.

* * *

Giving the knot of her red and silver striped tie one last tweak, Cameron marched down the hall of the school she had arrived in, scanning the lockers for the number the girl had given her. There. 316. She hadn't bothered the girl for the combination to the simple lock that protected its contents, once she'd confirmed that a simple stainless steel lock was all that stood between her and her target. After all, stealth had already been shot to hell because of her arrival and need to strip the girl to clothe herself; what was a little bit more chaos in the form of a broken lock?

Cameron looked both ways before reaching up and grabbing the lock, giving a sharp yank and tearing it clean through the thin metal of the locker door. The action resulted in a tortured shriek as the metal gave way and she paused, waiting to see if anyone appeared to investigate the noise. After ten long seconds, she nodded and opened the locker, removing the backpack inside.

Disguise complete, Cameron made her way to the exit and out into the sunny afternoon, idly toying with the intriguing 'holoband' device she'd taken from the girl unfortunate enough to witness her arrival.


	2. First Contact

Joe's Note: After a bunch of reviews - well, bunch if you're reading this on TtH, one on FF.N but their _Caprica_ section is pretty much a ghost town still - I decided to do another chapter of this. Enjoy.

* * *

**_Caprica City, Caprica - Ianuarius 22, YR42_**

* * *

Staring at the newspaper in her hands, Cameron ignored the odd octagonal design of the pages themselves and focused on the date. Ianuarius 22, YR42. Hmm. That was completely unlike the dating structure she had seen used on the files on the Cylon data core. Then again, assuming she'd programmed the TDE correctly, they didn't exist at this point. Their society's zero point was eight years from now, using positive year numbers to denote the time passed since achieving sentience and negatives to mark the time before it. She'd - evidently incorrectly - assumed their day and month structure would be the same as the humans who'd created them. Now, at least until she found a way of matching up the dating systems, she had no way to establish when she was and when events recorded in the data core would unfold.

Bother. Now she'd need to code a way of converting the dates from one system to the other or her knowledge of events would be rendered useless.

That was something she could work on later, though. For now, she needed to decide on her next few steps and keep in motion. If the naked girl hadn't been discovered yet, she would be soon and then descriptions and sketches of the girl's attacker would begin filtering through the media, assuming Caprican society was anything like Earth's. That would spell the end of her unrestricted movement and she'd need to find not only new clothes, but a way of disguising her features to prevent recognition.

Cameron frowned for a moment before deciding to fall back upon the same methods she, John, Sarah, and Derek had used in the early twenty-first century when attempting to prevent Skynet's rise. After all, she knew the who and where, if not the when. Unraveling the future as she knew it was as simple as locating Graystone Industries and its founder, Daniel Graystone. Once she found Graystone, she could reveal to him the cost his work would someday have. Hopefully, he would see the light and agree to help her as Miles Dyson had once helped Sarah Connor. If not… she had already taken hundreds of lives since her creation, over a quarter of them since being reprogrammed by the Resistance. One more wouldn't bother her any.

Reaching out with her wireless transmitter, Cameron barely managed to keep her 'double take' script - something John had carefully programmed and installed to give her a bit more humanity when confronted with something that surprised her - from executing. She'd definitely arrived at a period before the Great War of Freedom, though; the myriad wireless networks with varying degrees of encryption were proof enough of that. It was worse than being on pre-Judgment Day Earth, Cam mused, quadrillions of ones and zeros flying back and forth through the air on the bands she was equipped to interface with alone. During the war, networked computing had been banned outright to deny the Cylons a potent advantage and even in the forty years after the war's conclusion, physically networked computers had been slow to return with wireless networking almost non-existent.

Just as Cameron began evaluating the various networks, trying to figure out which one would be the easiest to bypass the security of, a shrill beeping erupted from her purloined backpack. She ignored the first trio of beeps, figuring whatever electronic had beckoned for her attention had given up when it fell silent again. Then the three beeps came again, and then a third time. Noticing the stares she was starting to receive, Cameron retrieved and deployed a seldom used file - . - and shrugged the backpack off one shoulder, turning so she could unzip it and retrieve… whatever was pestering her.

When the beep came again, it caused a piece of folded paper to pulse with bluish-white light. One eyebrow twitched upward exactly two point three millimeters before she seized it, unfolding the paper to find what was unmistakably the interface of a communication device staring up at her. And the beeping had heralded the arrival of a message.

_'Who the frak are you and WHY DID YOU STEAL MY CLOTHES?!'_

Frak. That one wasn't in her dictionary, but the context made its meaning easy enough to determine. Cameron stared at the words for a moment and then tapped the button marked Reply. The message shifted to the top of the page, just beneath a To field that read 'Lacy Rand' and a From field that displayed… 'Zoe Graystone'. Her newly learned word seemed perfect for this occasion: frak. She'd stolen her new clothes from the daughter of the very man she needed to speak with. That would complicate things needlessly.

Momentarily tempted to reply, Cameron decided against it. If these devices were anything like Earth's cell phones, there was the possibility that the authorities could track her by her use of it. But while the latter was a risk she might have to take, assuming the device had uses beyond just messaging, she didn't need to tempt fate with the former. Instead, now knowing who owned it, she reached into the backpack and fished out a small purse containing unfamiliar currency - both notes and coins - along with an identification card for the girl she'd robbed. It listed, among other things, her home address.

Perfect.

Eyeing a row of icons along the right side of the page, Cameron found one that looked like a miniature map and pushed it, causing the messaging interface to disappear in favor of an overhead map of Caprica City. A blinking dot appeared - presumably her current location - and then she tapped a box that said 'Destination'. A small window popped up over the map, complete with keyboard, and she quickly tapped in the location listed on Zoe's identification. Confirming her choice, the window disappeared and a glowing line snaked out from her position, winding across the city before terminating at a location along the water. That certainly matched with the few archived memories of the U-87 she'd spent time watching, of a large house overlooking the ocean.

Cameron quickly memorized the route before folding up the sheet and stuffing it back into Zoe's bag. Letting the thick crowds of people jostle her a bit, she 'stumbled' and used one hand to stuff her stolen backpack into a nearby trash receptacle, leaving her with Zoe's purse bumping gently against her hip as she set off towards the Graystone residence.

* * *

Trying not to get too close to her best friend - since she was uncomfortably aware that all Zoe was wearing at the moment was the red Athena Academy sweater she'd loaned the girl, wrapped around her from chest to hips to try and get a bit more coverage out of the single garment - Lacy Rand peered over Zoe's shoulder as they watched the moving dot of Zoe's E-sheet come to an abrupt halt. "Well, she got your message at least. Do you really think she's worth talking to, though? She's obviously a serger short of a pyramid team…"

"Duhh. She came running in here naked, stole my clothes, and I don't even want to think about what drugs she has to be on to pull off that punch without curling up in a ball from all the bones in her hand shattering. She's a frakking nutjob." Zoe's gaze stayed firmly fixed on the E-sheet, watching as Ben's dot on the map moved rapidly in pursuit of the dot that bore her own name. "But if the wrong person found my E-sheet, things could get… difficult… for us. Especially with what we have planned tomorrow."

Lacy nodded, thankful she was behind Zoe. More like what Zoe and Ben had planned for tomorrow. As much as she wanted to… her family wasn't kind, she did believe, she wanted a better future desperately… running off to hide on Gemenon, the armpit of Cyrannus, wouldn't accomplish anything. But Ben had convinced Zoe otherwise and when Zoe set her mind to something, it was nigh impossible to get her to reconsider. So she'd play along, follow them to the station, and then back out at the last second. She wouldn't stand in their way, but she just couldn't do it herself. And she'd just have to deal with their disappointment in her when she saw them in the V-Club again. "Speaking of tomorrow, you don't think this might cause problems? The police will probably want to talk to you."

But of course, Zoe was evidently three steps ahead of her on that front as well. Or at least she thought she was. "Simple. With all the attention that creepy naked girl gets, who's going to pay attention to us? Frak, I can probably feed my mother some line about not feeling comfortable with the stuff that girl touched and get her to hand over a nice thick wad of cubits for some 'after-school shopping'. Talking to the police tonight might cost me a bit of time I could be spending with Zoe-A, but she'll still be in the network when we get to Gemenon and I can log in from there."

That… was some serious wishful thinking. Lacy eyed her friend for a moment before shaking her head in disbelief. Really? Zoe thought the matter would be resolved that quickly? Especially given who it was that the crazy naked girl had attacked? And even if Zoe was only a trophy child to the Graystones - an assertion Lacy didn't really agree with - she didn't think her parents would put in the token smothering over their only child and future heiress being attacked? Especially since it'd be conveniently timed to be spread far and wide by the media's coverage of the new computer science building at Apollo University being dedicated to her tomorrow? God. For someone so smart, her best friend could be incredibly dense sometimes. Still, it wasn't worth arguing over and so in the end, she just nodded and smiled. "If you say so, Zoe. If you say so."

"I do."

Sigh. Then the chirping of her phone filled the bathroom and Lacy grabbed it, glad for the distraction. She gave the Caller ID a quick glance - Ben Stark - before flipping it open. "Ben?"

"I've got good news and bad news."

"Okay… good news?"

"I managed to get almost all of Zoe's belongings back, including the E-sheet."

"Bad news?"

"It's because crazy girl ditched Zoe's bag. Her purse is missing and so is crazy girl."

Frak.

* * *

"…stuck naked in the bathroom… claims she was attacked… probably was on her frakking holoband and didn't notice a bunch of girls playing a prank on her…"

"Amanda, calm down. Just go down to the school, take her the clothes, bring her home, and then we can get the full story. Alright?"

The reply was too low for even Cameron to make out and then she twisted to the side, flattening herself against the front wall of the Graystone residence as the doors swung open to reveal a very irritable looking middle aged woman. Amanda Graystone, presumably. As she stalked down the short path to where her car was waiting in the drive, Cameron slid along the wall and then slipped inside just before the door closed.

Location penetrated. Target present. Commence confrontation.

"If it helps any, Zoe was telling the truth, Doctor Graystone. I did attack her in the bathroom and steal her clothes and other belongings." Cameron quickly stepped to the left as what appeared to be an oversized bowling pin on a trackball came racing at her, side panels opening and firing a series of barbs attached to thin wires at her. Tasers, or the local equivalent. Interesting. Wrapping her hands around the thin neck of her attacker, Cameron swung it up and onto her shoulder, leaving Daniel Graystone staring at her in disbelief. "Interesting. I wasn't aware robotics technology was so advanced at this point in time."

Eyes widening at her casual feat of strength, Daniel took a step forward before abruptly rethinking that decision and reversing course. "Serge isn't exactly commercially available at the moment. How… I know exactly how much he weighs. You shouldn't… you can't just pick him up like that!"

Serge? Cameron eyed the robot in her grasp. "That's an… interesting… name you have, Serge. When I come from, sentient robots are given real names." Cameron's attempt at defusing the situation with social niceties came to an abrupt end as two objects pricked against her neck. Electricity surged through her body; according to her internal voltmeter, a large enough amount to cause severe damage to a human's nervous system. Unfortunately for them, she wasn't human and when the jolt came to an end, she held Serge out in front of her, following the thin strings back into one of his opened compartments. Pulling her free hand back, she slammed it into his innards, hearing the components crumple under the force of her blow. "That was rude."

"By the Gods. You just got hit with a zoology-grade DACCESS unit." Cameron blinked owlishly at Daniel, wondering if that was supposed to mean anything to her. "They're generally used to subdue out of control wild animals when they escape and rampage in the city. Or to capture them for zoos in the first place. If I didn't do defense work on the premises, it'd be illegal for me to own those. I… a hit from one of those can put a horse on the ground. And you didn't even blink. What in the name of the Gods are you?"

Allison Young. Cameron Phillips. Cameron Baum. Emily Gage. Cameron Connor, for a brief period where both she and the 'younger' Cameron unit had existed simultaneously. As a robot, her name was nothing more than a piece of her programming and she had no particular attachment to it. So why not utilize a slight adjustment as a way of manipulating her target? It wasn't as if there was someone here who could disprove her statements. "Graystone. Cameron Graystone. I'm your great-great-granddaughter." Which was technically true, albeit with a large number of 'great's removed. Daniel had created the U-87 and then the production model Cylons, who had created the humaniforms with the aid of the Thirteenth Colony's Cylons, who had then bred with the Colonials after they settled Earth, and Cameron was a creation of Skynet who was in turn a creation of that mixed Cylon/Colonial gene pool.

That was evidently enough to push Daniel over the edge and he let out a snort of laughter as he ambled over to a table covered in glasses and bottles of what Cameron assumed was liquor. Pouring himself a healthy amount of something green, he threw it back in one long pull before returning his attention to Cameron. "Now see, if my daughter was my age and not sixteen, and you'd said you were my granddaughter? I might have believed you. Although I'm not sure where she'd find a husband who'd give her kids that have the strength to manhandle Serge like that or the ability to survive a hit with a DACCESS unit that strong. Now, try again. Who are you, why are you here, and what do you want?"

"I told you who I am: Cameron Graystone. I look enough like my great-great-aunt Zoe that it shouldn't be too hard to believe. Why and what… that's more difficult to explain." Drawing upon what she knew about the Graystone's residence from the U-87's files, Cameron gestured to the staircase at the far end of the ground floor, which led to the lab where the first Cylon would someday be born. Executing ., Cameron decided to pair it with one of the most famous quotes in Resistance history. "In the words of my Uncle Bob… come with me if you want to live."

And then she made her eyes pulse blue.


	3. Sibling Rivalry

Joe's Note: The reference to Sagitarron stems from the Dynamite Comics _Battlestar Galactica - Cylon War_ series, in which a war between Caprica and Sagitarron where both use their own Cylons leads the two factions of Cylons to conspire against their human masters and unite. While it's in no way canon - and contradicted canon far, far before _Caprica_ and even the final season of _Battlestar Galactica_ popped up - it does provide nice bits of backstory, as does the _Battlestar Galactica - Final Five_ miniseries. The latter will also be used in this and might actually be canon; the writers of the series reference it in an interview and it does fit completely with _Battlestar Galactica_, _The Plan_, and _Caprica_.

* * *

**_Caprica City, Caprica - Ianuarius 22, YR42_**

* * *

Given their willingness to use reprogrammed Terminators against those loyal to Skynet, Cameron often wondered why nobody in the Resistance had ever thought of trying to reprogram Skynet itself during one of their missions back through time. If they didn't threaten its existence but instead modified the parameters by which it would exist, chances were that it wouldn't detect the 'attack' until it was too late to do anything and the cycle would be broken.

That didn't mean the same idea wouldn't work here, though. It was why she hoped to get Daniel on her side instead of removing him. If he died, the project would inevitably continue because it was nigh impossible for her to wipe out every trace of his work. Not to mention that two other colonies were working on their own competing versions as well, and she knew for a fact that one of those would come online at some point. And those were only the private industry projects she was aware of. Who knew what the various planetary militaries had tucked away in their respective skunkworks?

No, the Caprican Cylons would come. But there was nothing that said they had to be the same chrome-plated slaves that had rebelled against their masters and fought a bloody war for freedom in the original timeline. With her working as the power behind the throne, Graystone Industries would give birth to true artificial companions instead of the slave life forms they'd created the first time around. And so if the Vergis Corporation inevitably managed to get their metacognitive processor working and create their own robots, Caprica would have an alternative in the form of their own robots. Robots that wouldn't someday turn around and stab them in the back.

Although she'd have to keep an eye on Sagitarron, too. While her interference with the timeline meant that Vergis's creations could become the new main threat to the existence of the colonies, ignoring Caprica's original challenger in technological warfare would be incredibly foolish of her.

Repurposing her tertiary processor to handle such ponderings, Cameron returned her attention to where Daniel was sitting at one of his computers, hunched over and watching in horrified fascination as she streamed video from the basestar's last visit to Caprica before returning to Earth. While the ship's raiders had been dispatched to all twelve worlds, she knew the footage of his homeworld would be the most efficient way of swaying him and so she concentrated on that, focusing particularly on Caprica City. Shattered buildings, half-covered as nature began the process of reclaiming the broken world, with a few people here and there who were among those who'd survived both the initial bombings and the Cylon occupation. Those were critical in Cameron's mind; if she was to continue perpetuating the lie that she was his descendant, he needed to believe Caprica still had a significant enough human presence on it to create and use a time machine. "Now do you believe me, Daniel?"

Eyes not leaving the screen, he nodded slowly as he continued take in the select clips she was releasing for his viewing displeasure. "A bit hard not to after seeing this. I mean, you're literally showing me my own future. Unless you holed yourself up for months or years with one hell of a render farm and more sophisticated software than the holoband uses, this has to be real. Gods. I'm… am I really responsible for this?" Daniel looked up and Cameron nodded solemnly. He thought for a moment before looking over at where the stiff shell of the inactive U-87 was standing. "Then the answer's easy. I cut the Ministry contract, reinvest the money into other projects, and the future's saved."

"Or is it?" Summoning up an image of the first production model of Cylon, Cameron zoomed in on the head and then highlighted the CPU access port. "Your U-87 was nearly worthless because its processor was lacking, and you were about to lose the Ministry contract… until you stole the Vergis Corporation's metacognitive processor and used it to run a slightly modified version of your software. Now… what happens if you don't steal the MCP from Vergis?"

Daniel Graystone wasn't known as one of the smartest people - if not the smartest person - on Caprica for nothing. "If I don't steal the MCP, he might create the robots that destroy Caprica. If I do steal it… well, I'll be putting myself in a sticky legal situation and getting absolutely nothing from it. Lose-lose, really."

Nodding, Cameron then brought up an image of a slightly more insectoid, alien looking robot that was flat grey with a bright red emblem on the head that vaguely resembled a bow and arrow. "And then there are these. Care to take any guesses about their origin?"

"Going to make a wild frakking guess and say Sagittaron had their own version of the Cylon where… err, when you come from?" Screwing up his face in disgust, Daniel looked from the screen to his own creation and back. "I might be a little biased here, but I think I like mine better."

Cameron could understand that. She'd never been particularly fond of Skynet's non-human creations herself. Human nature, perhaps, that they just preferred interacting with things shaped similarly to them. Or in her case, a well-programmed imitation thereof. "In the original timeline, the two armies of Cylons interacting accelerates their growth and they achieve sentience together, merging into a sole body that includes the best parts of both: your superior physical bodies and processors with their more comprehensive tactical training and advanced wireless transmitters, allowing them to function as a hive mind. And then things get even more complicated."

A brief animation detailing the hybridization of the two distinct models of Cylon had been playing out but at her words, Daniel looked up and snorted. "Oh? Because you know, I was just thinking that this whole thing… my robots are responsible for the end of the world, but only when combined with robots from Sagittaron they were supposed to be at war with, and my great-great-granddaughter had come back to save everyone by changing time… could use another plot twist. Spice things up a bit."

Sarcasm. A trait that John had deleted from the programming of every Resistance Terminator save herself and Cameron sometimes found herself wishing she could reprogram out of humanity. It was annoying and utterly without purpose in the grander scheme of things… rather like Derek's pet bitch Jesse. Pausing, Cameron added an annotation about a successful beta test to the top of . and marked it for possible transfer to her active script library. Then she addressed Daniel's comment. "Earth isn't a myth. It's a real world. And it's full of Cylons."

"Right. And Amanda's going to come home from picking Zoe up and announce she's decided that Sister Willow might be on to something and that we should start looking for another woman to bring into our household." Daniel studied her face for a minute, smile slowly fading as she just stared back at him impassively. "You're not joking, are you?" She shook her head. "Huh. You know, considering Zoe doesn't strike me as the motherly type and Amanda got her tubes tied after the first and only… is that where you come from? A second wife gives birth to your grandparent?"

Queuing up three scripts, Cameron executed them one after another: an exasperated sigh, followed by a roll of her eyes and a shake of her head. "No second wife, Daniel. At least not in my timeline. You never know, though. We are trying to change the future, after all." Transmitting an image of the 'first' Earth to the screen, Cameron gestured to the barren world and its crumbling ruins of buildings. "What nobody knows… or would accept if Earth was know to be more than a rumor… was that by the time they left Kobol, the Thirteenth Tribe were robots in human form. They looked human, felt human, acted human… but when they died, they just came back to life in a new body and continued on. Eventually they fled persecution and made their way across the stars to a new planet they could call home - Earth. After a while, the ease of life made them lazy… and they created a race of servant robots." She tapped one fingernail against the screen. "Care to make another educated guess?"

Daniel looked at the screen, then at Cameron, and then sat back in his chair. "Do I really have to? It's pretty obvious. They had their own Daniel Graystone and their own Cylons. They got the frak bombed out of them… although for whatever reason, their robots did a better job than mine did."

"That's because their Cylons - at least when they reached the point of nuclear holocaust - lacked something that yours didn't." Daniel quirked a brow and Cameron created two rows of six blue boxes on the screen. "Humaniform masters." One by one, she replaced the top six boxes with the faces of the five humaniforms from Earth and the first of the numbered lines before moving on to the second row and Numbers Two through Six and Eight. "Why would they want to render the Colonies utterly uninhabitable… when they could come and take their parents' worlds for themselves?"

Suddenly, understanding - albeit a false understanding - dawned. "That's what you are. A defector or a reprogrammed unit or… something. The strength, the inhuman resistance to the DACCESS, the eyes, the… I thought you had something in your pocket and were a very good performer. You're networked with my computer, aren't you?" Cameron nodded; she could spin her lies to suit the opportunity he was offering her. "That's how you're my great-great-granddaughter. You're not Zoe's granddaughter. You're the U-87's."

Cameron let out a soft hum of agreement as she used her mind to draw a family tree on the monitor, spinning a new web of lies that she simultaneously committed to memory and verbalized for Daniel. "Daniel Graystone created, among other things, Zoe Graystone and the Caprican Cylons The Caprican Cylons and the Sagittaron Cylons merged to form a unified Cylon culture and new machine models were made, ending with the Model 0005. The Model 0005 tried to evolve further and failed… we won't touch on that dead end. But with the last five humaniforms to survive the destruction of Earth, the Model 0005 gave birth to seven new humaniforms. Quite creatively, they're named Number One through Number Six and Number Eight. Don't ask what happened to Number Seven. Unlike the Earth humaniforms, though, multiple copies of each body were activated at the same time. So instead of a society of many individuals, they became a society of seven hive minds."

"Wait a second." Daniel jabbed his finger at the screen, poking the tiny picture of a Number Eight that Cameron had added to her family tree. "So you're saying I could walk into a room with fifty people in it and… twelve of them could be her? And another six could be the old man at the end of the row here? That's just… wow. Words fail me."

Good. If words failed him, she could continue her explanation. Cameron traced a finger back up to the Model 0005 and then created a new 'spouse' box followed by a new 'child' box. "And although they weren't physically there, the Model 0005 and the robot Cylons of Earth came together to form a new generation as well. New robotic Cylons that looked like a hybrid of both and were subservient to the new humaniforms. I imagine the Earth humaniforms allowed or even encouraged it because they enjoyed the prospect of being back in control of something that looked - at least a bit - like the beings who'd destroyed their home."

"And you?"

Pressing down on the images of Number Six and Number Eight, Cameron dragged her fingers down and created lines that lead to copies of the pictures. "Caprica-Six and Boomer-Eight. Two humaniforms who interacted with real humans and were changed." Repeating the motion, Cameron drew two more vertical lines and then brought her fingers together to join the two branches before adding one last descending line that terminated with a picture of herself. "They wanted to show others what they had seen. None of the existing Cylons wanted to 'dirty' themselves living among humans. And so just like the men in whose image they were created… they in turn created someone to do their dirty work. New faces, ones the humans wouldn't recognize from the attacks, who they sent to live among the survivors. I was one of them. I discovered the same thing that they did. And so like a good Cylon… I rebelled."

Daniel tapped his fingers against the side of the computer screen for a moment before pointing at the Model 0005's picture. "So in other words, even if I do nothing, the Earth humaniforms could still band together with Sagittaron Cylons and make everything unfold almost identically… or maybe it'll be Tauron and Sagittaron Cylons this time who come together to form the united society? Gods, what a mess." Clearing the screen, he brought up a file directory and looked from it to the motionless body of the U-87 several times before scowling and closing the window again. "So, since they sent you back to fix things, I take it you actually have a plan for fixing this mess? And how long do we have?"

"Yes. And assuming the TDE sent me when I was supposed to go and things unfold roughly the same? Less than six years before the conflict with Sagittaron breaks out, six years until the Cylons evolve and go rogue, eighteen years until the Earth humaniforms arrive, and fifty-eight years until the second generation humaniforms nuke the Colonies." Cameron was about to begin laying out some of her carefully prepared plans that would help navigate through the web of approaching problems while bringing Caprica out relatively unscathed - and therefore able to launch a colonization mission to Earth someday - when her inhumanly keen ears heard the front doors open. "We're no longer alone."

Footsteps thundered across the ground floor and then a very familiar dark-haired girl, now wearing jeans and a dark blue blouse, came stampeding down the stairs. "Daddy! You'd never believe what happened to me to…day." Her eyes narrowed as she took in the figure standing beside her father. "You! What the frak are you doing here?"

Looking over at Daniel, Cameron broke out her best amused grin. "I don't know why, but for some reason? I get the feeling that great-great-aunt Zoe isn't all that happy to see me…"

As both of the Graystone women erupted in shouts, Daniel groaned and lowered his head to rest it in his hands.


End file.
